Hey an american soccer forum , excellent. Im a limey but im not here to bash US soccer , far from it. Ive been following your countries progress for about 3 years , not as a supporter as such unless your playing another european nation of course but out of idle curiosity. After spending a good 2hrs reading through threads what strikes me most is how negative some of you seem to be when it comes to your fledgling MLS or your mens national team , Crowd attendance and T.V slots seem to be the main grumbles. Personally i think it will be this way for at least another 5+ years but you shouldn't complain , we didnt create the premier league overnight. Your country has made more progress than any other footballing nation recently and seeing as america is a multi sports country that can only be a good thing. The long term sponsorship deals will come eventually and so to will the soccer only stadiums and the fat cats from the media(bet you all love disney now) , 20 teams in the league and maybe even the the soccer link on the usa today site will sneak up a bit. People are taking notice thats all that im saying. A sign of this was during the world cup when some of your journalists really did bash soccer liked ive never read before , everyday someone seemed to be sticking the knife in.This to me was a sign of panic and resignation that soccer had truely arrived , the further you progressed in the compitition the more they moaned , fantastic stuff! I saw that some poor commenator had made a fatal mistake by uttering on what must have been an emotional night "my eyes have seen the glory" which was given coverage in the UK. The next day after reading some of your press it was if the man had murdered his family. In 94-98 i could probably name one of your team , lalas , 2002 i can name at least 5. Now if you could somehow get your soon to be built soccer stadiums within 300 miles of each other you would really have a product , you need home and away fans for a football match. Anyway hope to see ENG V USA soon , we'll let you have the 1-0 from 850BC. Dont be so negative be patient have fun the good times will come. Janner
Welcome to BigSoccer! Thanks for the words of optimism, we could use some of that around here. And now to bring down the mood with US soccer realities... and seeing as america is a multi sports country that can only be a good thing. I fail to see this has a positive thing. It seems it's the other sports that are keeping us down if anything. Now if you could somehow get your soon to be built soccer stadiums within 300 miles of each other you would really have a product , you need home and away fans for a football match. With the size of the country I can never see this happening as much as I'd love to. Even the closer matches (which have even been referred to as "derbies" by some) don't have any away fans. It's really pathetic. Outside of the very small group of fanatics you travel sometimes we are a very long way off from that.
You make me so optimistic about the prospects of true European unity. Way to go, model European Union citizen! P.S. By the way, I did get a lot of pleasure seeing Brazil eliminate your country in the Q-finals.
Welcome to Big Soccer, Janner! Patience seems to be in short supply on this site; perhaps it's a cultural thing...
MLS is a fledgling league. So is AFL, WUSA, WNBA, Conference USA in college sports ... that's just the way it goes. There are characteristics of the "fledgling period" of any league, where things about the league are somewhat comical, like playing in front of 9,000 fans in a 90,000 person stadium. Like single-entity management. Like being a summertime marketing tool of the NBA. Like broadcasting "fun facts" about players' personal lives at the bottom of the screen. Like trying to get people to watch using X-rated cheerleaders. All these things can happen when you don't yet have pervasive fan support. Can I still be your friend?
Yes..good post. Funny though...cause theres a pizza shop down by where I work, and me and the pizza guy Joe (from Naples) constantly talk soccer. Yesterday we began talking about MLS and he stated how much he liked it. He said how soccer was soccer and how he appreciated it because it was different from the European game. And its true...while we all love watching ManU and Arsenal going at it in a highly technical affair....MLS is so american in that its quicker, and sometimes, the play is even better. I guess it all depends on what you like, but MLS is a direct result of the way our kids play soccer...fast and attacking.
Joe (from Naples) seems like a great guy but you really think MLS is a faster pace than the Premiership?!? It's known worldwide as the fastest league in the world...
Re: Re: Patience After spending way, way too long on the "reading list" thread I found a copy of (and I paraphrase here) "Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism," a book that purports to explain why soccer is different in the States than anywhere else, especially in relation to what they call "The big three and a half". After you plow through some of the sociology-professor speak (dense reading) at the beginning, the payoff in terms of the history of spectator sports (including soccer), the business end of things and anything else you can thing of is staggering. If it were required reading for BS posters things would make a lot more sense around here. (The only downside is that it was written just before WUSA was formed, so that things like MLS were just to young for anything other than speculation.)
Re: Re: Patience I concur with this above! Janner, don't be put off by the negativism, it's an old problem that's dwindling by the minute. That's a great and first post, welcome to you, and post often.
Janner, you think it's negative now? You should have been around here before the World Cup and during qualifiying. It was fantastic then! And I have patience, just beware.
Sorry but I've watched a ton of Premier League games, and they are just too slow. There's really no back and forth action like there is in MLS.
Re: Re: Patience No s h i t. Just look at what we did to this guy's post. We immediately started to shred it to ribbons. Amazing. In the same spirit, I can't wait to see the reaction to this.
I like the first post but I also found some interesteing theories in the thread. Mostly about the speed of the game and that the EPL mightbe played at a slower pace. One thing I might say about the EPL looking a bit slower is that I think they defend better 1v1 in England. That in itself will force players to go a bit slower and more carefully. But another reason might be this: Americans are faster. I'm pretty sure that Americans are the fastest atheletes in the world (look at the Summer Olympics and Track and Field). My guess is that Americans soccer fans this our most exciting players (not best, that would goto John O'Brien) are DaMarcus Beasley, Landon Donovan, Josh Wolff, and Clint Mathis. With the exception of Mathis, all the players have speed to burn. Now you look at some of the best that Europe would have to offer, Figo, Zidane, Beckham, Raul, and Owen. Only Owen has the spped to match our guys. I think its just a thing of where our players are more athletic than skillful and its the other way around in Europe. And that could result in a "faster" game. Not better, just faster.
Fast and attacking ... hmmm ... that sure was NOT the way our adult players managed to go to the Q-finals in June.
Get a grip of yourself. Re-read what you've written here. It's just misinformed on so many levels it's not funny.
Yes, I firmly believe that the average EPL game is faster and has more back and forth action than does the average MLS game. As for baseball, just "fuggedaboutit."